February 23 – Toronto

In response to the call for submissions of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression regarding the use of encryption and anonymity in digital communications, the Citizen Lab and independent researcher Collin Anderson have submitted a joint analysis, entitled “The need for democratization of digital security solutions to ensure the right to freedom of expression.”

An article by The Verge on the persecution of Bahraini activists Moosa Abd-Ali Ali, Jaffar Al Hasabi, and Saeed Al-Shehabi features the Citizen Lab’s extensive analysis into FinFisher, a line of remote intrusion and surveillance software developed by Munich-based Gamma International GmbH, conducted by Senior Security Researcher Morgan Marquis-Boire and Research Fellow Bill Marzcak.

This report describes a malware attack on a Syrian citizen media group critical of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Though we are unable to conclusively attribute the attack to ISIS or its supporters, a link to ISIS is plausible. The malware used in the attack differs substantially from campaigns linked to the Syrian regime, and the attack is against a group that is an active target of ISIS forces. In the interest of highlighting a developing threat, this post analyzes the attack and provides a list of Indicators of Compromise.

The Epoch Times cited the OpenNet Initiative, a project of the Citizen Lab, the SecDev Group, and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, as one of the best resources in learning about Internet filtering.

A new report, entitled “Communities @ Risk: Targeted Digital Threats Against Civil Society,” involved 10 civil society groups that enrolled as study subjects over a period of four years. The study sought to obtain greater visibility into an often overlooked digital risk environment affecting–whether they know it or not–many of society’s most essential institutions.

Cyber Steward Walid Al-Saqaf’s dissertation is featured in a piece by the Huffington Post. Al-Saqaf documents common themes in the repression of online content by different regimes during the Arab Spring.

This report is part of a series which analyzes regionally-based keyword censorship in LINE, a mobile messaging application developed by LINE Corporation. The most recent update to the censorship keyword list include a number of new entries as well as the introduction of regular expressions for more advanced keyword matching.

This report provides a detailed analysis of two products sold for facilitating targeted surveillance known as network injection appliances. These products allow for the easy deployment of targeted surveillance implants and are being sold by commercial vendors to countries around the world. Compromising a target becomes as simple as waiting for the user to view unencrypted content on the Internet.

On July 28-31, 2014, we convened the second annual Citizen Lab Summer Institute on Monitoring Internet Openness and Rights.